Trump's Big CON: He's Not Very Smart or Curious

UPDATE II:  "As my colleague Julia Ioffe reported, and Politico’s Susan Glasser confirmed, the Russians had been pressing hard for an in-person meeting with Trump, 'a man who is now known for starkly reversing his positions if exposed to in-person pleasantries.' . .

Throughout his campaign for president, Trump repeatedly mocked Obama’s prowess as a negotiator, saying the U.S. was getting rolled in trade deals and diplomacy alike. He promised he would be very tough, taking a much harder line with allies and adversaries alike, and said he would renegotiate the nuclear deal with Iran. Given how much he has conceded in his discussions so far, it’s a wonder Tehran isn’t practically panting for Trump to follow through."

Read The Atlantic, Foreign Leaders Have Realized Trump Is a Pushover.

UPDATE: "As a policy leader, Trump is unique among recent presidents. He doesn’t lead on policy. Normally a president who wants action on health care would try to unite the caucus by putting forth his own substantive ideas and getting legislators to support them. Trump never had a substantive proposal and never showed any command of the details involved, so he could not play that role. He forcefully pushed House Republicans to vote on something, anything, but he didn’t help resolve differences among them.

The system is adapting to the vacuum at its heart. . .

Trump is giving an entirely new meaning to 'Rose Garden strategy.' His goal is successful votes and Rose Garden ceremonies, with the content of those victories subcontracted. Trump, no doubt, views this as a strong executive focusing on the big picture. But this is not the result of management theory. It is the only possible choice for a chief executive who is being introduced to substantive issues and debates for the first time and seems to find them tedious. 'Nobody knew health care could be so complicated,' Trump said at one point, in a statement more fitting to a congressional intern.

It is useful, even necessary, for outsiders to arrive in periodic political waves. It is part of the way that democracies renew themselves without coups and violence. But this kind of outsider perspective is precisely what Trump is not providing.

Some of the reason is just the swift, merciless education provided by reality. Yes, Middle East peace is just 'as difficult as people have thought.' No, building a wall across a continent isn’t really possible. Yes, health-care policy is complicated. . .

This is the price of Trump’s emptiness. On major economic issues, he has not produced policy that tilts toward the needs of the working class. He has not rallied his party to address these problems in practical ways. Instead, he has outsourced his policy priorities and thus outsourced his political uniqueness.

During the presidential election, we heard, time and time again, that Trump is not a politician and would do what he said he’d do. The two points are actually in tension. Because Trump knows little about governing and less about policy, he can’t do what he said he’d do. And this only adds to the sum of American cynicism."

 Read the Washington Post, Why Trump can’t do what he said he’d do.

"It is urgent for Americans to think and speak clearly about President Trump’s inability to do either. This seems to be not a mere disinclination but a disability. It is not merely the result of intellectual sloth but of an untrained mind bereft of information and married to stratospheric self-confidence."

Read the Washington Post, Trump has a dangerous disability.

So why is The Donald not very smart or curious?

Because psycho-narcissistic con men never are.